What Is Network Access Control?

Network access control, or NAC, solutions support network visibility and access management through policy enforcement on devices and users of corporate networks.

Why is it important to have a NAC solution?

With organizations now having to account for exponential growth of mobile devices accessing their networks and the security risks they bring, it is critical to have the tools that provide the visibility, access control, and compliance capabilities that are required to strengthen your network security infrastructure.

A NAC system can deny network access to noncompliant devices, place them in a quarantined area, or give them only restricted access to computing resources, thus keeping insecure nodes from infecting the network.

What are the general capabilities of a NAC solution?

NAC solutions help organizations control access to their networks through the following capabilities:

  • Policy lifecycle management: Enforces policies for all operating scenarios without requiring separate products or additional modules.
  • Profiling and visibility: Recognizes and profiles users and their devices before malicious code can cause damage.
  • Guest networking access: Manage guests through a customizable, self-service portal that includes guest registration, guest authentication, guest sponsoring, and a guest management portal.
  • Security posture check: Evaluates security-policy compliance by user type, device type, and operating system.
  • Incidence response: Mitigates network threats by enforcing security policies that block, isolate, and repair noncompliant machines without administrator attention.

Key NAC Features.

  • Network visibility – With an ever-increasing number of endpoints due to BYOD and IT/OT integration, it is important to know what is on the network in order to define secure policies that cover all access use cases.
  • Device and user authentication– To validate users and devices, NAC needs to integrate with leading IAM and MDM solutions, for all remote and local access scenarios, wired and wireless.
  • Access control & policy engine – Users and devices must receive access on a least privilege basis, and endpoints handling critical data such as PII or financial transactions should be strictly segmented. Shadow IT or social media apps exposes devices and data to resources outside of an organization’s corporate policies. NAC can limit access for non-compliant endpoints and remediate the issue.
  • Bi-directional integration – Integration with security solutions such as SIEMs and NGFWs enable a NAC to make threat alerts actionable on the endpoint level; breaking down the security silos of such security products.
  • Guest access management – Enterprises need contractors and guests to have limited network access, and an easy to use self-registration portals or sponsor-based approval process without compromising security.- With an ever-increasing number of endpoints due to BYOD and IT/OT integration, it is important to know what is on the network in order to define secure policies that cover all access use cases.